Tea may cut cancer

Drinking just two cups of tea per day could cut the risk of developing skin cancer, a study suggests.

The US research compared the tea-drinking habits of 1,400 people with skin cancer and 700 who had not developed the disease. The study, in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, suggests chemicals in tea could have a protective effect.

But British cancer experts warned that the best way to guard against the disease was to protect the skin. The study, by a team at Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire, looked at 770 adults with basal cell carcinoma and 696 with squamous cell carcinoma.

Both are cancers which develop in skin cells. Sunlight is a contributing factor in around 90% of cases. Around 70,000 people in Britain are affected by the cancers each year (Obviously they go abroad to get the sun!). All those studied were diagnosed between 1993 and 1995 or 1997 and 2000.

The study asked the people with cancer, plus the healthy group - all aged between 25 and 74 - about diet, lifestyle and their consumption of both green and black teas.

Both kinds of tea are rich in antioxidants which animal studies have been shown prevent the development of cancer cells. This research found that people who drank tea regularly had a lower risk of either cancer.

Those who drank two or more cups a day had a 65% lower risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma. Tea-drinking also appeared to protect against basal cell carcinoma, but to a lesser degree.

Adding lemon peel to the tea, a practice more common in the US than the UK, seemed to increase the benefits of the drink, the researchers said.